Wednesday, April 30th 2025
8BitDo Suspends US Shipments After Tariffs Cause Skyrocketing Prices
After the infamous US trade war escalated tariffs on Chinese goods to as high as 145%, many PC hardware and peripherals vendors have felt the pressure, with hardware companies, like Framework, previously both increasing prices on certain products and suspending orders on others altogether. In the case of Framework, this was later overturned when the US administration announced an exemption for certain electronics, including smartphones and computers. 8BitDo, however, has not been so lucky, with Polygon recently discovering that items not currently in the US warehouse cannot be shipped to the US. We confirmed this with a brief test of our own and found the same warning that our order could not be shipped to the US.
Curiously, there are no warnings on individual product pages or anywhere else on the 8BitDo website that give any indication that 8BitDo will not be able to fulfil orders with US shipping addresses. It's only after the products are added to the cart and buyers head to check out that the warning appears. In the case of Polygon, the warning specified which items could not be fulfilled, indicating that US warehouses still had stock of certain items, but when we tested it, the warning was less specific, reading only "Shipping not available. Your order cannot be shipped to the selected address. Review your address to ensure it's correct and try again, or select a different address." Amazon, on the other hand, still seems to have stock for at least some of 8BitDo's items available. We tested the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard C64 Edition, which is unavailable via the 8BitDo site but is still listed at $99.99 on Amazon. Recently, Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders were also suspended due to US tariffs on Chinese goods, and Gamers Nexus also recently published a deep dive detailing the sweeping effects of the increased pricing and uncertainty from the perspective of various US-based PC hardware vendors and system integrators.
Sources:
8BitDo, Polygon
Curiously, there are no warnings on individual product pages or anywhere else on the 8BitDo website that give any indication that 8BitDo will not be able to fulfil orders with US shipping addresses. It's only after the products are added to the cart and buyers head to check out that the warning appears. In the case of Polygon, the warning specified which items could not be fulfilled, indicating that US warehouses still had stock of certain items, but when we tested it, the warning was less specific, reading only "Shipping not available. Your order cannot be shipped to the selected address. Review your address to ensure it's correct and try again, or select a different address." Amazon, on the other hand, still seems to have stock for at least some of 8BitDo's items available. We tested the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard C64 Edition, which is unavailable via the 8BitDo site but is still listed at $99.99 on Amazon. Recently, Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders were also suspended due to US tariffs on Chinese goods, and Gamers Nexus also recently published a deep dive detailing the sweeping effects of the increased pricing and uncertainty from the perspective of various US-based PC hardware vendors and system integrators.
17 Comments on 8BitDo Suspends US Shipments After Tariffs Cause Skyrocketing Prices
Data is a wonderful thing. As an investor into several different markets. given time you can get a certain idea on what's happening in that sector you are investing in.
There is pretty much no credible economist in the world disagreeing on this. And yeah you CAN make money in a bad economy but that's honestly not the point.I'm most worried about various foodstuffs but I was keeping it ontopic.So you think not having access to popular tech products is... good?
It's so so disappointing to see people not understanding who or what they voted for
Musk him too stated during the election that hard times are coming. But not for folks like him and Trump, for them it's a good time to buy when the market takes major blows.
He implemented tariffs and started a trade war with China in his first term, in which American farmers still have yet to recover despite being given subsidies.
He's been on, record dating all the way back to 2008, as being pro-tariffs.
A wise man learns from other's mistakes, a fool learns from their own, and an idiot not at all.
There is no getting around the impact politics has on tech right now, many companies has stopped shipments to the US.
Not political to say that capitalist companies taking advantage of labor and environmental issues by using China or other countries is bad for the earth.
But essentially people who disliked post-covid economy inflation (pretty much worldwide) decided to vote for TARIFFS. Not having a clue what they voted for. It's an embarrassing act of self-harm. Or rather, it harms others as well.
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And it's completely utterly not believable that all manufacturing would move back to USA. There are tons of analysis on this stuff too to read instead of listening to politicians who don't give any sort of damn about truth.
I don't buy the environmental angle either. The whole system is based on infinite growth from finite resources. As long as we bend over for the invisible hands of the market this isn't going to change.
Mind you, tariffs don't guarantee you move production back to the US, companies will just move to the next cheapest labor market. If they had to produce in the US, it would be as automated as possible to reduce costs.
Just a heads up, the suicide rate in the US is 14.7 per 100,000, in china it's 9.7 per 100,000.Chinese environmental laws are arguably more strict that the US's now. Environment and exploiting cheap labor markets are two entirely different things. That are not mutually inclusive.
The reason companies seek cheap labor markets is, aside from the cost reduction, US customers want cheap products. Production moved out of the US in the first place because customer demand shifted to cheaper products.
A lot of people like to virtue signal that they'd buy American if given the choice but that's nothing but a load of BS. If that were true production would have never moved out of the US in the first place. US customers have no one but themselves to blame for that, their money voted for cheap chinese goods and killed off all the quality American brands (well most of them, my I still have quite a few hand made American things around the house but I'm the exception).Most people are too ignorant to attribute actual real world issues to why they voted. Most voters will attribute how they feel to how they vote. If someone doesn't feel they are doing good, they will vote for change.Yes, the supply chain for things like modern electronics is far too complicated to bring under one roof within just a couple of years. I'm not sure it would be worth it either economically. Sourcing everything in the US prevents you from looking at potentially more competitive offers worldwide. You'd not only need to bring the entire supply chain home, you'd have to make them competitive with the global market. If China or Japan are any example, that takes the correct regulatory framework and a good 15 - 20 years and even then that won't get you the entire supply chain of a given market, just a chunk of it.